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NEWS: Aniplex to Stream Fate/Zero Worldwide in 8 Languages


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Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7328
Location: Maine
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:30 pm Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
However, when someone shits on something that people are giving to them for free... well, I was raised to kindly accept such a thing.


I was raised to not take things I don't want, even if it is free. It's better to have quality than to settle for something substandard.

Quote:
Every Saturday night/Sunday morning I'm watching One Piece via Funimation's stream at *gasp* 360p. So obviously such a quality level is not abnormal.


Via Hulu which gives you a pretty nice quality for the resolution, buffers well ahead so it streams without issues (I can't even pay to get that out of CR some times), and real full screen. That's not even comparable to the "quality" that NN gives you.

Emerje
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Xanas



Joined: 27 Aug 2007
Posts: 2058
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:35 pm Reply with quote
I just don't like streaming sites at all honestly, and when they have terrible quality it just makes them totally unusable even for previewing. 480p is really an absolute minimum given that their bitrate is substantially less than DVD and most of the official companies encoders seem to know nothing about how to do a decent job with anything less than that.
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Draneor



Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 355
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:48 pm Reply with quote
Emerje wrote:
Via Hulu which gives you a pretty nice quality for the resolution, buffers well ahead so it streams without issues (I can't even pay to get that out of CR some times), and real full screen. That's not even comparable to the "quality" that NN gives you


For me, at least, I have not been able to get either Hulu or FUNi's player to ever work so NN is better. Ideally, though, I wish content was offered on multiple sites so we could all use our favorite platform (CR for me). But ideals are often unrealistic.
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bglassbrook



Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 1243
Location: Gaithersburg, MD
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:15 pm Reply with quote
RyanSaotome wrote:
Anime is 100% advertisement. The distributing companies pay for timeslots during late night to air the anime, and they don't make money from commercials or anything... they just hope to make it back from DVD sales. Streaming is no different.

Yup, and I only plan (oops, used the P-word) to watch the first episode anyway to get a sense for the designs. Normally the next step would be to sit-back and wait for the BD to hit my purchase price... but given the increased chance of this staying an in-house Aniplex release, which means no dubbing at Honneamise pricing, I don't hold out a lot of hope of it ever hitting.
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einhorn303



Joined: 20 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:23 pm Reply with quote
RyanSaotome wrote:
Anime is 100% advertisement. The distributing companies pay for timeslots during late night to air the anime, and they don't make money from commercials or anything... they just hope to make it back from DVD sales. Streaming is no different.


That is the existing model for the Japanese market, but they can still try a different model for a different market.

And still, what about for simulcasts where a BD/DVD release outside Japan is unlikely, like Saki or what have you? And with many niche simulcasted shows, foreign importation of merchandise could never amount to a reasonable amount of income.
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RyanSaotome



Joined: 29 Mar 2011
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Location: Towson, Maryland
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:37 pm Reply with quote
einhorn303 wrote:
RyanSaotome wrote:
Anime is 100% advertisement. The distributing companies pay for timeslots during late night to air the anime, and they don't make money from commercials or anything... they just hope to make it back from DVD sales. Streaming is no different.


That is the existing model for the Japanese market, but they can still try a different model for a different market.

And still, what about for simulcasts where a BD/DVD release outside Japan is unlikely, like Saki or what have you? And with many niche simulcasted shows, foreign importation of merchandise could never amount to a reasonable amount of income.


That may be the case for some shows, but we know Fate/Zero will be coming over here. They're trying to make Fate a significant brand here with the release of Fate/Extra this Fall, and releasing that Fate fighting game on PSP in English. This gives people a low quality version so they are hungry for the inevitable beautiful 1080p release down the line in North America.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:49 am Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
And yes, in comparison to paid streams, clearly Niconico's stream is substandard. Maybe I just didn't mention the word "free" enough. Free. Free. Free. Free.


Don't be a smart ass. I know full well what you said. As I said, even Crunchyroll's free streams are better than this.

Quote:
If you don't want to watch a free stream, then go ahead and wait for the Bluray.


No, I want to watch in better quality but I don't want to wait. There's no reason I should have to accept the latter for the sake of the prior. Once again, Crunchyroll manages to provide both free streams and better, paid streams so why can't Aniplex?

Quote:
However, when someone shits on something that people are giving to them for free... well, I was raised to kindly accept such a thing.


That's really a misleading statement though. It's not like they're streaming these shows just to do me a favour. They're doing it to make money. They benefit from me watching their streams.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:42 am Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:

That's really a misleading statement though. It's not like they're streaming these shows just to do me a favour. They're doing it to make money. They benefit from me watching their streams.

I regularly watch computer game streaming on Justin.TV/Twitch.TV and I know quite a few of the prominent streamers there. Do you know what they earn per view of an advertisement? 2/10ths of a cent per view. So get a 1000 people watching per ad and they'll earn $2. Your view amounts to a fraction of a penny.

Almost everyone loses money with online streaming video. Look how long it took the apparent Gods of Streaming (as anointed by this thread) Crunchyroll just to break even on the books, and after how many millions of investment was that? Online streaming, for the most part, is not profitable. Or at least, the model has yet to be found that makes it profitable. Hell, Hulu, the largest and most widespread TV streaming website is for sale... and there has been a lot of questioning by the big execs about what buying Hulu would actually bring. Other sites can pop up and compete as easily, and controlling all the content rights to ensure popular shows stay on the site has got to cost a large sum. Or Google can't ever seem to make Youtube profitable (although they can come up with many attempts, like this latest one).

All things said, Aniplex doesn't have to provide anything, at all. Especially to the foreign community. Hell, judging from the current status of the anime industry, I am downright amazed that Japan hasn't completely enclosed within itself as far as anime distribution goes.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:53 am Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
Almost everyone loses money with online streaming video.


That's absurd. If streaming almost always lost money then Crunchyroll would not exist. What you are saying is glaringly false. Streaming isn't exactly lucrative but clearly it is profitable at least in most cases.

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All things said, Aniplex doesn't have to provide anything, at all.


That's a tremendously specious point. Obviously they don't have to but once again, they aren't doing this just because they're nice guys. They want people to watch their streams. They wouldn't stream at all if they didn't think it was beneficial.

Quote:
Especially to the foreign community. Hell, judging from the current status of the anime industry, I am downright amazed that Japan hasn't completely enclosed within itself as far as anime distribution goes.


I'm sorry but that is the stupidest thing I've heard in weeks. What would possibly posses anime companies to write off an easy, risk free, supplemental revenue stream like R1 licensing?
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einhorn303



Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 1180
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:09 am Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:
Megiddo wrote:
Especially to the foreign community. Hell, judging from the current status of the anime industry, I am downright amazed that Japan hasn't completely enclosed within itself as far as anime distribution goes.


I'm sorry but that is the stupidest thing I've heard in weeks. What would possibly posses anime companies to write off an easy, risk free, supplemental revenue stream like R1 licensing?


Some possible reasons are:

1. In some cases, shows might have such small profits that it's not worth the labor needed to coordinate licensing (People who can speak English, who can deal with oversees, who can write contracts, who can prepare and deliver materials, who can monitor that brand integrity is maintained). For the Japanese licensor, licensing shows isn't completely without overhead costs.
2. Reverse importation.
3. Devaluation of the product: Some studios might not want to sell their anime for super cheap in the US, if they have the idea that they could sell it at Japanese prices (like Aniplex Japan with "Garden of Sinners") or somehow make it big and mainstream with the right partner (like trying to get things on TV/theaters with Viz or Sony or something).
4. Might attract negative foreign attention to the anime industry, resulting in political crusades (like with the "Rapelay" fiasco).
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7578
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:48 pm Reply with quote
I actually have some handy real world quotes for a couple of these:

einhorn303 wrote:
1. In some cases, shows might have such small profits that it's not worth the labor needed to coordinate licensing (People who can speak English, who can deal with oversees, who can write contracts, who can prepare and deliver materials, who can monitor that brand integrity is maintained). For the Japanese licensor, licensing shows isn't completely without overhead costs.

"Oftentimes, Company A has the Americas, Company B Europe, and Company C Asia, etc. So with corporate overhead at big companies so high, they simply cannot process a contract for 'small' revenues...they lose money just by signing a deal." - Rob Pereyda
(specifically regarding streams for countries like Scandinavia, but it dovetails nicely)

Quote:
2. Reverse importation.

http://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/blog/?p=2674 (Jonathan Clements)
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:34 pm Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
I actually have some handy real world quotes for a couple of these:

einhorn303 wrote:
1. In some cases, shows might have such small profits that it's not worth the labor needed to coordinate licensing (People who can speak English, who can deal with oversees, who can write contracts, who can prepare and deliver materials, who can monitor that brand integrity is maintained). For the Japanese licensor, licensing shows isn't completely without overhead costs.

"Oftentimes, Company A has the Americas, Company B Europe, and Company C Asia, etc. So with corporate overhead at big companies so high, they simply cannot process a contract for 'small' revenues...they lose money just by signing a deal." - Rob Pereyda
(specifically regarding streams for countries like Scandinavia, but it dovetails nicely)
Though this is an institutional lag ~ just adopt the practice of habitually allocating "worldwide ex-Japan simulcast streaming rights" to one company, and then there is no longer an extra contract cost to include any individual country in the base North American streaming contract.

Quote:
Quote:
2. Reverse importation.

http://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/blog/?p=2674 (Jonathan Clements)
Given that the domestic Japanese RAW is always going to be up faster than the subtitled simulcast rip, reverse importation fearz would be misplaced for streaming.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:51 pm Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
Though this is an institutional lag ~ just adopt the practice of habitually allocating "worldwide ex-Japan simulcast streaming rights" to one company, and then there is no longer an extra contract cost to include any individual country in the base North American streaming contract.

Sorry, Crunchyroll can't get everything. FUNimation is going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license. Section23/Sentai is going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license. Heck, Beez or Manga UK are going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license. However, FUNi, Sentai, Beez, and Manga UK have no real use for a worldwide license. They're only going to mainly want what is in their targeted consumer market (be it North America or Europe). If FUNi licenses Persona 4 for instance, there is never going to be a point in time where FUNi thinks it would be logical to stream Persona 4 to those in Ukraine, or to those in Guatemala, or to those in Thailand.

The idea of "worldwide ex-Japan simulcast streaming rights" is simply nonsensical given that there is only one global anime streaming service, and they sure as heck aren't going to pay for the digital rights of everything.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:31 pm Reply with quote
einhorn303 wrote:
Some possible reasons are:


Regardless of whether these are in fact valid reasons, I don't see anything to indicate that this is why Megiddo thinks Japan should give up on North America. His only argument seems to be "Americans are spoiled and I'm mad and therefore Japan should just rage-quit the whole R1 market".

Quote:
1. In some cases, shows might have such small profits that it's not worth the labor needed to coordinate licensing


It's not without costs so yes, in some cases where a show is worth so little that it doesn't even cover these minor costs it might not be worth it. However, that's not even close to being the case for the vast majority of shows.

Quote:
2. Reverse importation.


A non issue for streaming or DVDs.

Quote:
3. Devaluation of the product: Some studios might not want to sell their anime for super cheap in the US, if they have the idea that they could sell it at Japanese prices (like Aniplex Japan with "Garden of Sinners") or somehow make it big and mainstream with the right partner (like trying to get things on TV/theaters with Viz or Sony or something).


If that's their aim then they're not really writing off the R1 market at all.

Quote:
4. Might attract negative foreign attention to the anime industry, resulting in political crusades (like with the "Rapelay" fiasco).


That's just silly. No matter what the results of such a controversy, it can't possibly be worse than the result of shutting down the whole R1 industry. Your countermeasure is at least as bad as what you're trying to prevent. It's like burning all your money to prevent any of it being stolen.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:40 pm Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
agila61 wrote:
Though this is an institutional lag ~ just adopt the practice of habitually allocating "worldwide ex-Japan simulcast streaming rights" to one company, and then there is no longer an extra contract cost to include any individual country in the base North American streaming contract.

Sorry, Crunchyroll can't get everything.
The fact that the production committee has allocated the worldwide simulcast streaming rights to one member company in the production committee doesn't say anything about which streaming service will get the stream, nor that a single service will get the rights worldwide. It just means that bids for simulcast streaming rights for a given series all go to a single place and there are not duplicated contracting costs created by arbitrary regional licensing division boundaries.

This wouldn't imply "Crunchyroll gets everything", but it would mean that an region restrictions on the series that Crunchyroll does get would be due to some other bidder for those rights, rather than just being "cost to much to grant the rights because those are marginal markets handled by a different division/company" countries.

Quote:
FUNimation is going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license. Section23/Sentai is going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license. Heck, Beez or Manga UK are going to want the digital streaming rights for the titles they license.
While FUNimation wants the digital streaming rights for the titles they license, they licensed a number of titles now that were simulcast elsewhere. Given that they only want to license titles they believe will repay a dub, there is only going to be a small fraction of the total numbers of series broadcast any given series that they are going to be interested in exclusive simulcast streaming rights to.

Indeed, I was under the impression that Section23/TAN has as many or more simulcasts in the current season as FUNimation.

And, indeed, suppose that Madman acquires the simulcast rights for Australia/New Zealand, and MangaUK acquires the simulcast rights for UK/Ireland, and the rights for the Francaphone European countries are acquired by that French streaming service. This would still make it easier for another streaming site ~ whether Crunchyroll or some site not yet established ~ to acquire the simulcast streaming rights to regions that nobody else has bid for.

One streaming service not getting region rights because some other service has the rights ~ that's business. No streaming service getting the rights to a country because it costs too much to look at the contract for that particular subset of countries to justify bothering ~ that's evidence of an outdated licensing model that needs to be brought up to date.

Quote:
However, FUNi, Sentai, Beez, and Manga UK have no real use for a worldwide license. They're only going to mainly want what is in their targeted consumer market (be it North America or Europe). If FUNi licenses Persona 4 for instance, there is never going to be a point in time where FUNi thinks it would be logical to stream Persona 4 to those in Ukraine, or to those in Guatemala, or to those in Thailand.
But how many simulcasts is Funimation really going to want to go for? Most of their licensing in the past few years has been post-simulcast-season.

Quote:
The idea of "worldwide ex-Japan simulcast streaming rights" is simply nonsensical given that there is only one global anime streaming service, and they sure as heck aren't going to pay for the digital rights of everything.
The fact that there is one global anime streaming service means that dividing up simulcasting streaming rights up front into three or more global regions, thus creating unecessary contracting costs for offering rights to marginal markets to that service that keep those rights from being granted, is an outdated model.

You're talking as if I suggested exclusive worldwide ex-Japan open-ended digital streaming rights. on the side of the streaming licensees. I was addressing the business model on the side of the original licensors, and focusing on simulcast streaming rights.
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